Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Honors Promising Young Scholars

118 Researchers Receive Sloan Research Fellowships

NEW YORK, Feb. 15, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of 118 outstanding researchers as recipients of the prestigious Sloan Research Fellowships for 2011. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships are given to early-career scientists and scholars in recognition of achievement and the potential to contribute substantially to their fields.

Drawn from 54 colleges and universities in the U.S. and Canada, this year's fellows represent an extraordinarily broad range of research interests, including an astronomer who studies the birth of new planets, a computer scientist who examines how changes in computer network architecture can save energy, an economist who investigates the game-theoretical foundations of cooperation, and a mathematician who uses geometry to model how the brain represents stimuli.

"The scientists and researchers selected for this year's Sloan Research Fellowships represent the very brightest rising stars of this generation of scholars," says Dr. Paul L. Joskow, President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. "The Foundation is proud to be able to support their work at this important stage in their careers."

Administered and funded by the Sloan Foundation, the Fellowships are awarded in close cooperation with the scientific community. Potential fellows must be nominated for recognition by their peers and are subsequently selected by an independent panel of senior scholars.

The $50,000 fellowships are awarded in chemistry, computer science, economics, mathematics, evolutionary and computational molecular biology, neuroscience, and physics. In 2012, in recognition of the important work done by Sloan-sponsored researchers working on the Census of Marine Life, the award program will be expanded to include fellowships in ocean sciences.

For a complete list of winners, visit: www.sloan.org/fellowships/page/21.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant making institution based in New York City. Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation, the Foundation makes grants in support of original research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economic performance. www.sloan.org.

SOURCE Alfred P. Sloan Foundation